It's sad to see that even after all these years, we still have to write articles like this one. It's all over the web right now: a new backdoor Mac OS X trojan discovered! Code execution! Indicative of rise in Mac malware! Until, of course, you actually take a look at what's going on, and see that not only is it not in the wild, it can't really do anything because it's a beta.

<quote>That doesn't render his point invalid at all. If you're a virus writer and you can target hundreds of millions (maybe billions?) of users with Windows, or tens of millions with Mac, which will you choose?

There is actually a business-case for Mac malware too: Mac users are typically lulled into the belief that there are no viruses or malware for Macs and thus they are much easier to fool in that regards than Windows users. Also, Mac users are likely to have more cash than Windows users simply because Macs themselves are so expensive. And yet again, if you can choose to compete against a million other virus/malware writers or 5 others, it might actually make more sense to aim for the platform with only 5 other competing developers even if the market-share of that platform isn't as big as the other platforms.